1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns improvements in or relating to mounting terminals with electric wires into connector housings. The invention has particular, but not exclusive application, for connecting terminals with electric wires and then inserting the terminals with electric wires into connector housings from the back.
2. Description of Background Information
Press-connecting and press-clamping are mainly adopted for connecting electric wires with connector terminals in a wire harness and the like.
A press-connecting connection (hereinafter, merely referred to as press-connecting) is shown in FIG. 27. The press-connecting terminals t are loaded in the cavities s of a connection housing C. Press-connecting blade guides 1 are matched with the connector housing C (FIG. 27(a)), and electric wires a are supplied (FIG. 27(b)), and pressed and connected in the terminals t by press-connecting blades 2 (FIG. 27(c)). Namely, the press-connecting presses and loads the electric wires a into a connector housing C from above.
A press-clamping connection (hereinafter, merely referred to as press-clamping) successively press-clamps the connecting pieces of the terminals on the bare conductors after removing the covering of the electric wires. Accordingly, in general, the press-clamping press-clamps the terminals to every electric wire, chucks pick up the terminals one by one with a hand 3 and insert them into the cavities s of the connector housing C from the back (terminal-inserting inlet) as shown in FIG. 29 (refer to Japanese Patent Publication (unexamined) Hei No. 9-115642 and the like).
In the above-mentioned press-connecting, for example, in the case of the connector housing C having the cavities s of two stages in a wire harness, the connector housing C is conventionally divided into an upper housing C1 and a lower housing C2 in order to press the electric-wires in from the upper face of each housing C1, C2 as shown in FIG. 28. After the terminals t and the electric wires a are respectively loaded on the upper housing C1 and the lower housing C2 (from FIG. 28(a) to FIG. 28(b)), cover b is closed and both C1 and C2 are integrally connected together (FIG. 28(c)) (refer to Japanese Patent Publication (unexamined) Hei No. 10-335037 and the like).
The conventional press-connecting requiring two housings C1 and C2 has further many working steps and it causes an increase in cost. Further, the walls e between the cavities may be bent outwards and the housings swollen by pressing power during press-connecting. As a result, it can happen that the cover b is not successfully closed and the upper housing C2 and the lower housing C1 are not successfully united. Further, from the viewpoint of reducing the bending problems of the cavity walls e, this type of connector C for press-connecting has terminals t in all of the cavities. However, it was found that mounting terminals t in the cavities s to which electric wires a are not press-connected did not avoid the problems. Further, dismantling of both housings C1 and C2 is required for newly press-connecting electric wires a in empty cavities s. As a result the press-connecting is virtually impossible.
In the press clamping on the other hand, the terminals t with the electric wires a are mounted in the cavities s one by one from the back. As a result, only one connector housing C (not divided) is required in place of the two stage type connector C as described above. However it is necessary to connect the electric wires a on the terminals t one by one, and it has a problem in workability. In addition, the connection of the terminals t one by one is apt to cause a chucking miss. Further, since the electric wires a are inserted while being held, the electric wires a are apt to buckle as shown by the chain line of FIG. 29, and such buckling causes a mounting miss.
Further, in the case of the connector housing C having the cavities s of two stages or more, there is a connector housing which mounts the terminals t in the cavities s of the upper and lower stages so that their backs face each other. In this case, after the electric wires a are chucked with the hand 3 as shown in FIG. 30(a), the terminals t are inserted in the rotational jig D as shown in FIG. 30(b), rolled in the direction of the arrow mark under a condition in which the chucking is released and chucked again to be inserted in the cavities s as shown in FIG. 30(c). The rolling action occasionally results in causing a twisting force on the electric wires a, and there is a risk that the terminals t cannot be straightforwardly re-chucked and a smooth insertion cannot be obtained.
The present invention aims to provide a solution to the problems and disadvantages of the known press-connecting and press-clamping connections described above.